SciFoo 2012Image by jurvetsonAt Google this weekend. On display here is one of the early production servers, with four motherboards jammed on each shelf and cork sheets inserted in between. It overheated quite easily, so they built a wall of fans on the backside.

Here is today’s agenda. I have removed all of the names of the cool people leading these talks since there are Chatham House rules in effect.

So many sessions I want to see... I am in this session now: "What if extinction is not forever?"It is quickly becoming feasible to reconstitute the genomes of vanished species using genetic material from preserved specimens and archaeological artifacts. Three different techniques are being deployed. Revivals already under way include mammoths, aurochs, and passenger pigeons. Candidate species include the dodo, the Carolina parakeet, the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), and the Xerces blue butterfly. If we can actually revive an extinct species, should we? If so, why bother? Are some species more desirable, valuable, or ethical to bring back than others? Is it ethical to “improve” a revived species—for example to make a formerly extinct bird resistant to avian malaria? Do revived species have a “right” to be returned to the wild? Should revived species be treated as genetically modified organisms? In this session we can discuss the rapidly evolving science making all this possible and the downstream implications and opportunities.

Here is the lineup… So many great ones overlap. Sadly, right now, I’m missing the trillion-fps camera imaging the movement of light. Decisions, decisions…

10:00am•What happens if we don't do anything about climate change? and what do we do about it if things go horribly awry? •Robots (nanotechnological, synthetical biological, intelligent, for control) To Solve The Brain (understanding, fixing)•Experiments in (informal) education: what can one magazine do? •The coming war on general purpose computing and the civil war that comes after. •Impostor Syndrome (and the culture of science)•Spidersilk using silk worms. •Smartphones to save lives, prevent disaster•Open access commoditizing science - what next? •What is Time

11:00am•Neuroprediction: Does your brain predict if you will do bad things? p.s. all about psychopaths•Optogenetics & Neural Imaging & Dynamics of the single cell•Reversing climate change, land, air, ocean. •What can new imaging hardware and software solve next? Trillion frames per second. Look around corners•A fundamental problem in digital systems. •De-Extinction: Practices and Prospects •What I learned by doing capitalism and what you need to know•Future of music •Funding Science

12:00am•Will the human race cause its own extinction •Discovering new materials by computation. •Data driven societies. •Grand challenges in neuroscience. •Long tails and big heads: Big data in science. •Neurolaw•Consumer biotechnology ie tissue engineering meat, leather, and other daily needs. •What can we invent to raise the level of public discourse even slightly? A face to face debate platform on the internet •Information that lives - digital lives and intelligent agents •Detecting asteroids before they hit us.

15:00•Your genome, your health. How long will we just kick the tyres of your car?•Ocean acidification. •Do we have free will and why does it matter? •Big data sets and using them intelligently e.g. climate data, •Storytelling vs the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Also, comics•DIY and makers as international policy. Jose Gomez-Marquesz TH Culhane (fuel from garbage electricity , aluminum demo)•What Microbes are on you your phone. •a new artificial intelligence Brains Minds Machines•Revolutionizing Education. •The reproducibility crisis in biology.

16:30•Tenure from Tweets? evaluation beyond citations•African floating communities. •Large-scale learning on the internet & Talking to the brain in its own language. Making prosthetic devices that work. •Role of the ocean in carbon and climate. •Biohacking and citizen synthetic biology How far can we go? •Visual Tools for Science and Engineering. •Do or should humans have an off world future? •Ignorance - can we admit it and keep credibility? •Demo SharkFinder Citizen Science Kits

20:00•Organizational Manipulation: how to social engineer your company, university, grantor, or colleagues •fMRI Brain Reaction so what? •IP & patents in biotech/education/community labs etc. What are the issues? What needs fixing? What's the future? •Economics Comedy with stand-up economist + open-mic if desired•Imagining post capitalism: a call for help. •Of course Mars has life, but does Europa? •Automating science to Accelerate Discovery with Demo•The coming age of brain decoding. •Images & Anecdotes from 17 years of astronomy picture of the day. •Scaling research up - moving outside the lab with demo of smartphone brain scanner. •Will the microbiome and inflammation explain all diseases?

True fact: While shooting this not one but two different little kids came up and asked "Is that a real dinosaur?".

Nicholas WongImage by LianaAnThe Wallace Line, Botanical Monkeys: Poetry"My poems have so far been centered on themes of politics and social change in Malaysia and Southeast Asia, written through the lens of culture, language and animals that have gone extinct or are institutionally marginalized.

In August 2008, I was fortunate to be an artist resident at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia, where my research and writings ranged from endemic plant species to scientists, such as Alfred Russell Wallace and EJH Corner, both of whom made a huge contribution to defining the landscape of the Malay Peninsula. The two pieces you read were inspired by them."Nicholas Wong CC'11